For the fifth event in their speaker series, CAARDI: Counter Anti-Asian Racism Digital Initiative, Centre A is pleased to host Kai Cheng Thom for “What Have Conflict, Justice, and Love Got to Do With One Another? An Introduction to Anti-Oppressive Conflict Transformation.”
Join mediator, author, and healing justice practitioner Kai Cheng Thom for an inspiring and skills-based presentation on working with conflict in social movements. How can we understand conflict as an opportunity for relationship growth and transformation? How can community organizers and leaders respond to conflict in a courageous, loving way? And crucially, how do we de-escalate and respond to conflicts that threaten to destabilize our communities? Kai Cheng will present several key concepts for analyzing and working with conflict grounded in a trauma sensitive, abolition based approach.
Participants should come ready to explore conflict from various perspectives and be aware that conflict can be an emotionally triggering topic. Kai Cheng is not available during this workshop to provide extensive conflict coaching or emotional counseling. Please note that this is not a workshop focused on responding to intimate partner violence, but rather typical or normative conflicts that arise in group settings.
The event will take place over Zoom. Advance sign-up is necessary, and is available below; audio transcripts will be available upon request.
Date: July 8, 2023
Time: 2:30 – 4:30 PM PDT
Location: Zoom
You can register in advance for the event HERE.
Kai Cheng Thom, MSW, MSc, is a certified Somatic Sex Educator, Qualified Mediator, Clinical Hypnotherapist and Certified Professional Coach based in tkaronto/Toronto. She is also the author of five award-winning books in various genres. Kai Cheng’s work focuses on the intersection of social justice, pleasure activism, and transformative approaches to healing conflict. A noted speaker and practitioner of somatic wellness, healing, and group process facilitation, Kai Cheng supports individuals and groups who are seeking to repair relationships and make transformative change. She also teaches as Adjunct Faculty at the Institute for the Study of Somatic Sex Education.
Centre A: Vancouver International Centre for Contemporary Asian Art is a leading public art gallery currently situated in the heart of Vancouver’s Chinatown, on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples. It is a registered charity and the only public art gallery in Canada dedicated to contemporary Asian and Asian-diasporic perspectives since 1999.
Centre A is committed to providing a platform for engaging diverse communities through public access to the arts, creating mentorship opportunities for emerging artists and arts professionals, and stimulating critical dialogue through provocative exhibitions and innovative public programs that complicate understandings of migrant experiences and diasporic communities.